If employers were to match the skills investment of 15 years ago, there would be 20 million more learning days than there are today. Therefore, we need public-private partnership to cause an earthquake if we are going to match the government’s growth and productivity ambition.
Skills England, established as an executive agency within the Department for Education, is now led by its new chair, Phil Smith – someone with substantial private sector experience – and is underpinned by career civil servants who know their way around Whitehall. A simple “business as usual” approach is not acceptable.
Back in the autumn of 2022, the document on which I led, Learning and Skills for Economic Recovery, Social Cohesion and a More Equal Britain, was published. There was an absolute recognition that government and employers at every level were going to have to work together to mobilise the talent and potential of British society to meet the challenge.
With the word “migration” continuing to prove toxic, it will be necessary to skill and re-skill the people of this country and return a high proportion of the 2.8 million people currently on long-term sickness or disability benefits into employment.
This is essential if we stand a chance of lifting our economy and delivering on the key milestones set out by the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves and her colleagues.
One and a half million homes cannot be built without the skilled personnel and apprenticeships of the future that will carry us forward over the next five years. Major infrastructure programmes stand no chance of coming to fruition if there is not a clear plan to which everyone can sign up; fully use the resources of the growth and skills levy as well as public funding and business investment to put the jigsaw together.
Given the size of this national imperative, the Prime Minister must be the driver of this collaboration. Just as creativity is required for private capital to match investment from the Treasury in order to kickstart projects across the country, so is complementing the big-ticket investment numbers the Chancellor endorsed in January.
It is true that the previous private finance initiative was discredited by government, but with properly trained staff learning the lessons of previous contracting failures, a new approach will be essential in raising the private capital we need.
If the economy is to be balanced, and if all parts of the UK are to feel the benefit – and, with it, the political and personal optimism to counterweight the simplistic solutions of the far right – there is no time to lose in putting the industrial strategy alongside a skills revolution.
With the rapidly changing profile of the world of work, and with artificial intelligence offering both potential and risk, upskilling and progression within work will be as important as the goals set out in the Get Britain Working white paper.
In other words, every government department with skin in the game must make their contribution to provide a joined-up government, which has historically proven elusory and so often failed to materialise at crucial moments in our past.
In crude terms, this is an endeavour to which all parts of our economy – public and private sectors – must sign up. Waiting for someone else to deliver the goods simply won’t hack it.
This article first appeared in our Spotlight Igniting Growth supplement of 14 March 2025.
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